


Blue

by parttimehuman



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, First Kiss, Happy Ending, Holding Hands, M/M, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, some angst and some fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21862150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parttimehuman/pseuds/parttimehuman
Summary: Every werewolf has a soulmate.Every werewolf has a soulmate, and this is how it happens: On every day you spend on earth, the stars move a little closer together above your head until they form a line - the curve of a closed eye that will one day open to look upon you. From that day on, you will have someone to watch over you in life and death, and you will never feel complete without the soul that the eye belongs to.But what if your soulmate's eye opens to reveal something you didn't expect?
Relationships: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken
Comments: 19
Kudos: 113
Collections: 2019 Thiam Reverse Big Bang





	Blue

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the Thiam Reverse Bang 2019. It is inspired by the [artwork](https://li0nh34rt.tumblr.com/post/189793028472/rbb-art-for-blue-the-amazing-story-flyde) made by the incredible Janna. Please go and tell her how amazing she is!

Every werewolf has a soulmate.

Theo has known this since he was a fluffy little cub. His nana has told him the story of how she saw her soulmate’s eye for the first time on so many occasions that Theo knows her exact words by heart. It’s not only the story about his grandparents’ first meeting, it’s a story about love. About finding your place in the world. The same story he’s always wished to live through one day. 

Every werewolf has a soulmate, and this is how it happens: On every day you spend on earth, the stars move a little closer together above your head until they form a line - the curve of a closed eye that will one day open to look upon you. From that day on, you will have someone to watch over you in life and death, and you will never feel complete without the soul that the eye belongs to. 

Theo can’t imagine what it must feel like. When his older sister Tara was still alive, she couldn’t wait to be old enough to watch her soulmate’s eye open. Sometimes she would sit outside on the balcony of their parents’ house at night, looking up into the night sky until she’d fall asleep. Although she was way too young for anything to happen at that point, she was already waiting. 

Theo, on the other hand, didn’t start actively waiting until he was much older. He liked his nana’s story, but as a kid - even as a teenager - the whole thing seemed awfully far away from him. He knew some soulmates were led together quite young, but fifteen-year-old Theo didn’t feel like it was his time. He was still healing from the loss of his sister and more often than not, between a rapidly changing body and an even more rapidly changing mind, being a person at all was hard enough, so being a person with a soulmate wasn’t on the table. 

Almost ten years later, things are different. Theo used to be glad when it seemed like the universe was giving him time to deal with his own trauma first. When the stars in the sky came together and drew a closed lid and sometimes fluttering lashes on the nightly canvas he was scared, and when the eye remained shut for a while after that he felt relief, although he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to. 

Theo’s soulmate’s eye didn’t stay shut for just a while though, not just for as long as it took him to get his life back together after Tara’s death, not just long enough for him to grow up and learn about kindness and responsibility. Soon Theo is turning twenty-five, and every day he sits on his private little rock in the middle of the woods, finding his special spot before sunset and closing his eyes, not opening them until he knows it must have gone dark around him. 

Every night, he tilts his head up and turns his face toward the sky. Every night, like this one, he’s trembling, hoping for the miracle, trying to prepare for disappointment when he opens his eyes. 

He’s started doing it some time after his twenty-first birthday and it has become his routine. His grandparents were only sixteen when it happened to them, his parents eighteen. The two best friends Theo grew up with have long left town in order to find their soulmates after their eyes had snapped open one night. Scott when they were in freshman year and Stiles just before junior year ended. In fact, Theo doesn’t know a single soul his age who’s still waiting. 

“Sweet boy, you have to be patient,” his nana always tells him. “Everything happens for a reason.” Theo used to believe she knew everything, but of course, doubts have long invaded his lonely mind. What if there’s something wrong with him? 

Theo wills his brain to shut up. Nobody is perfect, and yet every other werewolf he’s ever known has found their soulmate. And after all, there definitely is an eye up there in the sky. Theo can see it every night. Sometimes he even thinks it’s moving. It just hasn’t opened yet, but it will. Right?  _ Right? _

With a shaky exhale, Theo relaxes his face and slowly forces his eyes to open. Once again, he’s looking at a dark blue sky and twinkling stars. Once again, he can see that the eye is there, but once again, it remains clenched shut. 

Theo doesn’t know why it still makes him sad and angry every time. He shouldn’t let it. He shouldn’t even be waiting in the middle of the woods, shouldn’t waste his time there while the sun sets and let himself get his hopes up again. He should know better. 

“Where are you?” Theo whispers to the eye above him. He gets up and stands on the rock. He stretches his arms out, but he’s still endlessly far away, still utterly unable to do anything to get closer to his soulmate. “What are you waiting for?”

There isn’t going to be an answer. Theo doesn’t know why he keeps standing there and staring at the stars that haven’t moved in several years. He doesn’t want to get mad, doesn’t want to be impatient, but he can’t help himself. Even with the special healing and regeneration powers of a werewolf, he won’t live forever. His life expectancy is much higher than that of a human, but it still feels like every passing day shortens the life he will share with his soulmate by too much. 

What if all that his nana says is true? What if he’ll love this other soul more than he’s ever loved himself? What if he’ll want to hold their hand every day of his life? What if their smiles and laughter will make his heart swell with pure joy and happiness? What if their presence will bring him a whole new kind of warmth and comfort? 

And what if he can give all those things to his soulmate too? Why would they waste so many years? Why would the universe deprive him of that? Why?

Theo has tears in his eyes by the time he forces himself to avert them. He’s breathing too fast and too heavily, his body shaking like he’s one of the leaves in the wind, powerless against the forces of nature. His hands clench into fists and his vision blurs, Theo’s heart is racing and panic threatens to choke him up from inside. 

There’s only one way he knows to escape it. Run. 

Theo shrugs out of his jacket and kicks off his shoes. His shirt, jeans, socks and underwear follow them to a pile on top of the rock. The cool wind covers his skin in goosebumps and makes him shudder, but he won’t be cold for long. Theo chooses a direction and starts running. He takes a deep breath and reaches inside him, accessing not his mind this time but something deeper, something that works without thinking. At this point, the shift happens fast and smoothly. One second, there’s a naked guy running through the woods and the next one, a big, dark-grey wolf. 

While the sticks and stones hurt beneath Theo’s bare, human feet, the forest ground feels amazing beneath his paws. Thick fur keeps him warm and shielded from wind and raindrops. Breathing is easier, even when he’s running for a long time without stopping or slowing down. He can see well in the dark, but he doesn’t really need to. Really, Theo only needs his fine nose and to follow it until he’s forgotten what the human part of him wanted to cry about. Just a little further, just a little faster and everything bad in the world shrinks into one place that the wolf in Theo can easily run from.

*

If only for a while, the running never fails to slow Theo’s spinning head down. He pushes himself to keep going until even his wolf body tires. Slowing his pace, he focuses on his surroundings, sniffing the air and following the scent of salty water to a lake so he can drink. 

The twitching of his muscles makes him feel more alive than anything he’s ever done and in his human form, Theo would be smiling as he walks across soft earth to the clear water. He drinks from it until he feels refreshed and strengthened. With a deep breath in, he thinks that as long as he gets to be free like this, life isn’t so bad after all, not even without a soulmate, not even if the damn eye stays shut forever. 

Of course, Theo’s peace of mind is brief and harshly interrupted. There’s a certain irony to the fact that after literal years of staring into the sky and waiting, he finally sees it by looking down, not looking for it at all, just catching a reflection in the still water of the lake before him. 

Theo has to look twice. There’s the dark, as always. There’s the moon, bright and beautiful, surrounded by stars, also as always. But then there’s something new, a change to the curve he’s grown so familiar with. There’s a second curve now and together they’re shaping an eye. There’s a pitch black pupil in the middle, moving, searching for him. The soul is probably waiting for Theo to turn his head and look up, to meet their gaze. But Theo can’t. 

Instead, he’s standing there like paralyzed, staring down in disbelief and quite honestly, horror. He’s been waiting for years, but this is not how it’s supposed to be. This is not what Theo was supposed to look up to. 

Theo looks away and at his own reflection on the water surface. His eyes are something between yellow and green, just like the eyes of most werewolves. The only other eyecolor Theo has ever seen a werewolf possess is the crimson red of an alpha, but everyone knows that there’s a third option. Theo does because his parents, his nana and everybody else has warned him to stay away as far as possible from a wolf with those kind of eyes. 

Blue. A bright, almost glowing cerulean blue unlike anything existing in nature. Theo’s heart must be beating a million times per minute. There’s only one reason for the universe to mark a soul this distinctly. There’s only one way for a werewolf to acquire this special eye color.

Murder. 

Whoever this soul is that’s looking down from the sky and searching for Theo’s gaze, at some point in their life, at least once, they’ve killed someone. The thought makes Theo feel sick. 

*

He tries to ignore it. What else is there to do? Under different circumstances, he would go and search the whole world for his soulmate so he could finally be with them after all those long years of waiting. But a murderer? Surely he can’t be expected to spend his life with them, even if the price he’ll pay will be loneliness until the end of his days. 

For the first couple of nights, it’s easy. Theo simply doesn’t go outside. He makes sure to be home from work before sunset, closes the blinds and curtains of his little apartment and hides under the covers of his bed. It’s not like he doesn’t feel like he’s doing something wrong, something forbidden, but what’s the alternative? Go and live with a killer? It’s not really an alternative, right?

After a week or so, Theo can tell that he’s missing the nightly visits at his rock in the woods and the wolf runs until his lungs are burning and his muscles aching. The only thing aching is his heart. He doesn’t get enough fresh air and he doesn’t get to let the animal inside him to the surface enough. It makes Theo tired but restless. He can’t concentrate while he’s at work and he doesn’t want to do anything but sleep, but when he’s lying in bed with his eyes closed, he can’t find peace. 

The blue eye starts haunting him. Theo doesn’t need to be outside at night and look up into the sky to find it staring back at him. It’s there whenever he closes his own eyes, in a bright, crisp color. Strangely enough, in Theo’s opinion, it’s a pretty one, but it doesn’t have the right to be. The blue is a warning sign. It screams danger. It gives you the chance to run while you still can. 

The only problem is, Theo can’t run. Two weeks after the blue eye snapped open, he’s gone from incredibly tired to almost sick. Waking up in the morning with terrible headaches, he can barely drag himself out of bed and to work, but he has to, and after all, werewolves aren’t even supposed to get sick. Physically, Theo, who is born a werewolf, has never felt anything worse than brief pain. But even back when he fell from the tree in his parents’ backyard as a kid, the healing started just as soon as the pain did. Minutes after his fall, the bones in his arm were grown back together and nothing but a little dried blood and dirt were left on his skin. 

Werewolves can heal from far more severe injuries than a broken bone or an open wound on their forehead. In other parts of the world they’re being hunted, but a human has to be creative to kill one. Even the damage knives and bullets do is temporary. Which makes it all the more scary that Theo seems to be experiencing symptoms of sickness. 

After three weeks, Theo’s nana comes over to look after him. By the time, Theo is too drained of his energy to think of a plausible excuse for his little break from a healthy social life. He lets her into his place, watches as she wrinkles her nose and finds himself helpless against her attempt to make him soup and feed him like a baby. 

“Theo,” she says in a serious voice after she’s fed him and changed his sheets. “Tell me what’s going on.” 

Theo sighs. There’s no point in lying to her, although it hurts. Here’s the woman who’s told him her beautiful love story over and over again and he doesn’t know how to break it to her that her only grandson won’t ever have a story like hers to tell of his own. In the end, he doesn’t have to say anything at all. His miserable state speaks for itself and on top of that, she can read his chemosignals like an open book. Theo must reek of disappointment, shame and sadness. 

“It’s your soulmate, isn’t it?” 

Hearing the word ‘soulmate’ is like a harsh blow to his heart. He nods without looking at his nana. She’ll make him cry, he just knows it. 

“Oh, my sweet boy,” she whispers, “what happened to them?” 

Theo shakes his head. “I don’t know. I was waiting for them. All these years, nana. For so long I’d been waiting for them. I already thought something was wrong with me.” 

Nana makes a disapproving sound and squeezes Theo’s hand a second later. “Nothing is wrong with you, love.” 

“No,” Theo says coldly, “but with them.”

“Your soulmate?” 

“They’re not my soulmate,” Theo says firmly. He used to think that not having a soulmate was the worst possible thing to happen to a werewolf, but now he might have changed his mind. 

“What are you talking about?” Nana asks softly.

“I know they’re supposed to be just right for me. I know the universe isn’t supposed to make mistakes, but what if it does? You know me. You know me, so tell me how it’s possible that the soul that’s meant for me belongs to a murderer!” 

Theo is almost relieved by the audible gasp that follows his confession. His nana’s shock means that he isn’t just being dramatic. She doesn’t understand what’s happening either. 

“Theo,” she whispers, but not even the wisest woman he knows has any more words to offer. 

“It can’t be right, can it?” Theo asks, desperate for a reply he knows he won’t get. “And even if it is, it doesn’t mean I have to go find them, right? Nobody can force me to be with this person. Right, Nana?” 

She purses her lips and shakes her head. She looks sadder than he’s ever seen her before. Well, maybe once before.

“You’ll die without them,” she says quietly, sending a shiver down Theo’s spine. “Look at you. How long has it been?” 

“Three weeks maybe,” Theo murmurs. Twenty-three days, to be exact, but Theo doesn’t feel like admitting that he’s been counting the days. 

“You look terrible,” she says. It stings although he knew it. “And you smell even worse. You didn’t think you could just stay hidden in here and sit this out, did you? Because you can’t. Three weeks and it’s already this bad. You’re not getting better without them. You’ll die.” 

Stubbornly, Theo says, “There’s not really anything I can do about it, is there?”

She makes a sound of disapproval, but she doesn’t need to tell him that there is, and that he knows exactly what, and that he doesn’t have a choice anyway. Theo sighs and closes his eyes. He’s so tired, so desperate to pretend like this isn’t what his fate has come down to.

*

As much as Theo wishes it wasn’t true, his nana turns out to be right after all. With every day, his condition gets worse. He can barely get out of bed. Dragging himself to the bathroom or getting food from the fridge exhausts him way too much. Everything hurts. Theo’s limbs are aching and his head throbbing, but the worst is his heart that feels like it’s being torn into pieces while it continues to beat in his chest. No werewolf powers can ease his suffering and soon enough, Theo can’t even get his eyes to turn and glow anymore. 

The physical pain will definitely kill him sooner or later, but the truly hard part is the emotional pain. That’s the pain that lasts. In every waking moment as well as in every single one of his dreams, Theo thinks of the blue eye that’s searching the world for him from high up in the sky. He can barely think, but at the same time he can’t stop the thoughts about entwined fingers and the warmth of another palm pressed against his own. Sometimes he can feel soft hair running through his fingers although nobody is there beside him. 

It gets more extreme every day. He starts hearing whispers and giggles so soft that he can tell himself it’s just the wind at first. Then he hears words, a voice that soon seems like he’s known it for all of his life. It speaks and it laughs and then, the first time it cries, it almost breaks Theo. He curls up in his bed and feels the beat of a heart against his back. When he reminds himself that he’s all alone, it suddenly gets freezing cold in his apartment. 

It doesn’t stop. Theo is forced to live through the joy and pain of a whole life. He sees wrinkles in the corner of an eye from laughing and he sees tears. Warm breathing comes against his neck and a scent settles in his home that’s never been there before. His heart breaks over bad days he’s never had and friends that haven’t left him but someone entirely else, someone he doesn’t want anything to do with but can’t escape. He hears melodies of favorite songs and learns to trust and mistrust people he’s never met.

Memory after memory attacks his powerless mind, some of them beautiful and some of them outright cruel, both kinds scarily intense considering that they’re not really his. 

For several weeks, Theo wishes for it to stop. He doesn’t want to know this soul and all their past and all their secrets. He doesn’t want to feel what they’ve felt. He doesn’t want to be reminded of his connection to them every second of every day. Little does he know that the real torture hasn’t even started. Not until one day, the whirlwind in his head really does stop. 

From that moment on, Theo is truly lost. With all his heart and soul, he misses this person. He doesn’t know their name or what they look like, but those things hardly matter to him. He yearns for the feeling of their touch on his skin even if it was never real. He’s dying to hear them laugh again, whether that beautiful echo was only in his head or not. 

Theo needs his soulmate in a different way than he needs air in his lungs or water and food in his stomach, a far more urgent and painful one. It’s during those days that Theo starts regretting. If only he’d accepted his fate and gone out in the world to find this soulmate when he still had the strength to do it. It’s too late now. How ironic, that Theo isn’t only going to die, but he’s also killing the soulmate by doing so. Murdering the murderer he was so afraid of. 

*

“I’m sorry,” Theo whispers, mostly because he can’t speak anymore. “Guess I fucked it up for the both of us.” 

He’s sitting on his rock in the woods with a blanket wrapped around him. For one last time. He knows it. It was hard enough to make his way out and so deep into the preserve, to climb that rock and not let the coughing fit that followed choke him. His eyelids are heavy, his fingers cold and every bone and muscle in his body tired. So tired. 

Lying down, Theo looks right into the crisp blue eye above him. The first time he saw it, it scared him more than anything in his life ever had the chance to, but now? Now he’s thankful for not being alone, which is selfish of him but what else is new? Had he cared about being selfish, he wouldn’t have refused to give this soul a chance. 

The remaining shred that his heart used to be is stabbed by an invisible knife and Theo winces, screwing his eyes shut and getting into fetal position. This is how it ends. “I’m sorry,” he breathes out again, trying to force his eyes open one last time as the pain intensifies and steals his breath away before his body starts to go numb. All he can see is blurry blue and tears, though he can’t be sure if they’re his own or if they’re falling from the soulmate’s eye. 

Nothing about dying is peaceful. No matter how clear and irrevocable his fate is at that point, the human as well as the wolf inside him have instincts that are trying to keep their body alive still. When he can no longer feel his arms and legs, there’s still the urge to move. When he can no longer see or hear or smell anything, his mind feels trapped and panics. Everything turns slower and duller and darker. There’s pressure in his chest and pressure in his head and an eternity he has to wait for until the great nothing embraces him. Finally. 

*

Theo isn’t sure what he expected his arrival at the afterlife to be like, but he certainly didn’t imagine it being so painful. His body hurts and his head hurts even more. The light is way too bright and his eyes are burning. He struggles to suck air into his lungs and he struggles to move even just his pinky finger. He can’t talk, and he can’t think, and if he did have any expectations for after death, they probably revolved around the helplessness, the powerlessness of life being over, but Theo finds himself as weak and unable as ever. 

Panic starts rising inside him.  _ This isn’t right. Something is wrong. Help.  _ Theo wants to scream but he doesn’t think he’s actually making any sounds at all. He begins to shake and thrash around although, again, from the outside he most likely isn’t moving at all, it just doesn’t feel like he is. It’s like going under, like making all the right movements with his arms and legs to push himself up to the surface but still sinking deeper and deeper and deeper… 

Until someone he didn’t see above him reaches for his hand and yanks him up, pulling him out of the darkness, out of the cold, dragging him to a shore, helping him breathe. It takes Theo a couple of moments until he has calmed down enough to realize he wasn’t drowning, he can’t have been, since he’s lying in a bed where it’s dry and warm and safe. The blanket covering him is soft and smells like home, and the hand that saved him is still holding on. 

It’s not like Theo can’t hear the voice softly speaking to him, it’s just that he can’t listen. He needs to focus on the hand first, the skin-on-skin contact and the tender circles drawn into the back of his hand and how  _ big _ it feels, how consuming it is. He might be floating in water or in space right now - Theo doesn’t have the energy to begin thinking about it - but either way, there’s an anchor there,  _ his anchor _ , holding onto him, grounding him. 

Pain leaves Theo like it’s being drained out of his body. There’s a warmth that originates from where his hand is being held and spreads throughout him. His heart feels whole for the first time in months - he guesses that must be one of the perks of dying. Tension leaves him right after the pain is gone and Theo releases a sigh. He feels okay now. Good, if he’s being honest. Less alone and less scared than he ever used to feel when he was still alive. 

“It’s fine, it’s alright,” the voice that’s been talking to him says. It must be the same essential thing it’s been repeating for a while. “Take your time. I’m here. We already know things can’t be rushed, don’t we? Doesn’t matter. You’re not going anywhere. Neither am I. We have all the time in the world. Totally alright.”

Theo knows the voice. It’s familiar, which makes the whole thing weird. He isn’t supposed to meet anyone he knows in afterlife except his sister Tara, and Tara, even in case she no longer is an eleven-year-old, can’t possibly have developed a voice that low. 

When Theo opens his eyes, he should be shocked. He should be as freaked out of his mind as he was the first time, but he can’t be. Not with the fingers gently stroking his skin and the voice talking to him softly. Not when he sees a familiar curl of light-brown hair and the exact shade of skin he remembers so vividly, pink lips that curl up into a light smile and all of those things put together. He’s never seen the whole image, but he has spent so much time staring at the individual puzzle pieces that it makes complete sense to him. 

It’s weird that the only person with him in the afterlife is the soulmate he sentenced to death, isn’t it? And why doesn’t the guy seem to be angry? 

“I’m sorry,” Theo says, unsure whether it’s not enough or too much. What are you supposed to tell a person in this particular situation? Theo goes with another apology. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to you in time.” Being sorry helps neither of them now. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” the guy leaned over him replies. He’s weighing his words carefully, giving Theo a tentative smile, blue eyes soft, compassion written all over his features. Or worse - forgiveness. Theo has to admit that from a murdered murderer, he’d kind of expect something different. 

“How can you say that?” Theo asks. He tries to push himself up onto his elbows and to suck more air into his lungs and to speak louder, to make the fog and the dimness go away. He doesn’t want to feel so helpless, and he doesn’t want this dead soulmate to be his only company wherever he is now, and he doesn’t want their sympathy. 

“What do you mean?” the guy wants to know, but really, Theo should be asking  _ him _ the same thing. How can  _ ‘It’s okay. It’s alright.’  _ be his only reaction to, well, death. Not only death but being killed. Being killed by Theo, who was supposed to be his soulmate. What does Theo mean? He doesn’t know how to explain it to him. 

“Hey, how about you start by telling me your name, huh? I’m Liam. I didn’t think this was going to be how we meet, but it’s still nice to finally make your acquaintance. If you need me to take any more of your pain, let me know.” 

“Uhh, Theo,” Theo replies. He’s very much not prepared for this. A memory of Tara hits him all of a sudden, of his big sister sitting at her desk in their childhood home writing entire speeches, explaining to Theo that she had to commit what she wanted to say to her soulmate when they’d first meet to paper in case she’d be too nervous to remember it all. Theo never bothered to plan ahead like that. Maybe he should have.

“Theo,” Liam repeats. The shy but happy expression on his face makes Theo wonder whether death makes all people nice or something. If he’s being honest, it’s the only logical explanation for Liam not ripping his head off. 

*

“Theo, you should probably get some more rest. Do you want me to make you food first? Or is there anything else you need?” 

_ ‘For my Last Judgment to be over’ _ , Theo thinks but doesn’t say. It’s a little disappointing that death doesn’t allow him to be in peace and all by himself. That it’s not an end to anything so far. Really, as Theo finds, it’s pretty much the same as life, as far as he can tell. He doesn’t feel any different at all. 

He’s looking at this Liam guy walking around the strange room they’re in, putting a fresh bottle of water on the nightstand next to Theo, opening a fridge and rummaging through it, quietly babbling on and on about how Theo is supposed to make himself at home and just let him know if there’s anything he needs or wants. It’s surreal. It’s too much. It’s the absolute peak of insanity in Theo’s eyes. 

There he is, lying in a bed that isn’t his own but feels perfectly comfortable, wearing a hoodie that doesn’t belong to him either but is just the size he likes. His inner alarm systems should be freaking the fuck out, but everything on his inside feels calm and balanced. 

Admittedly, Liam doesn’t look like a killer. Not at all. He might be even shorter than Theo himself, and while his shoulders are broad and his arms well trained, the hair curling in his neck and in front of his forehead make him look soft. Baby blue eyes and pink lips with the tendency to form smiles don’t threaten Theo in the slightest. The guy smells like safety and home and Theo is pretty sure that something must have gone wrong, because this can’t be what hell is like, but if it were heaven, Tara would be the one by his side. 

“I don’t understand what’s happening to me,” Theo says bluntly, interrupting Liam’s quiet talking. He sits up and stares at the other man, expecting to at least get Liam to confess that nothing makes sense to him either. 

“Why?” Liam asks, eyebrows drawn together now like he’s worried.  _ Worried. About the guy who killed him.  _ “Are you not feeling well? I know a guy, you know. A druid. Well, mainly he’s a vet but he knows a lot more about the supernatural than anyone else I’ve ever met. If you’re not healing, we should go see him. I actually considered bringing you there instead of here in the first place, but I talked to him on the phone and he said my home would be more effective and so I-”

“Wait.” Theo isn’t following. “Wait. What?” 

“You know, after I found you on that rock in the woods.” 

“You did what?” Theo’s mind begins reeling.  _ What if…? No. Right? _

Now Liam seems confused as well. “How did you think you got here?”

“I died,” Theo answers. He did. He refused to accept his soulmate into his life and so his life ended. He doomed himself and the soul of a murderer, and he started caring too late, and it was all his fault, and he should have listened to his nana. And he died. He went to his special spot one last time and looked into the piercing blue eye at the sky and then lost it, like he lost everything else in a matter of a few minutes. And then he was dead. And why is he crying now? 

“Hey,” Liam tells him once again, taking two large steps towards him, sitting down on the bed and taking Theo’s hand back into his own, rubbing his thumb over it, replacing fear and pain with warmth and peace as if it was that simple. “Almost, Theo. You almost died.”

Theo shakes his head. He looks down at their joined hands but not in Liam’s eyes. “No,” he says, vehemently. “You didn’t come for me. You didn’t find me. You didn’t  _ save _ me.” 

Liam stiffens, but he doesn’t let go of Theo’s hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to you sooner, but the bond got weaker. I assume now that it was because you were getting worse. At the beginning I only needed to go outside and your scent was right there. I knew which direction to go. Sometimes you tugged at my hair or you whispered into my ear, but it became less every day.”

Theo doesn’t know why he didn’t anticipate that the soulmate would try to find him. 

“I was so scared I wouldn’t make it in time,” Liam whispered. “And I almost didn’t.” 

“I’m-”

“Oh no,” Liam interrupted Theo before he could apologize again. “I don’t think we’re ready to have this conversation. For now, what matters is that you’re alive. I’m not stupid, Theo. I get what happened. Could you be so kind as to stay alive until we can talk about it?” 

What is there to talk about? It’s pretty clear now that the only two options they have are staying alive together or dying. Theo tried to make that choice for the both of them and failed, which tells him that Liam would have chosen differently. Of course Theo doesn’t want to die either, but does Liam really want him to explain what was going through his head? Why having Liam as a soulmate seemed so unacceptable to him? 

Theo nods lightly. He can stay alive for now. 

“Thanks,” Liam whispers and squeezes his hand.  _ Thank you for not escaping a life by my side by killing the both of us.  _ What a pathetic thing to be grateful for. 

*

It seems stupid to stay at Liam’s place, to sleep in his bed and eat his food and let him take care of Theo when the elephant in the room that’s Liam’s little apartment only keeps getting bigger and louder and harder to ignore. When he’s on the phone with his nana, Theo has to hang up abruptly to avoid talking about it. He wants her to know that he’s alive and well. That it can only mean his soulmate has found him and they’re together, Nana knows of course, but Theo can’t talk about the details. Not to the woman with the perfect love story. 

Weirdly enough, in between the guilt and the regret and the uncertainty of the future, there are enough little moments where Theo feels like he is where he belongs. He can’t describe it in any other way. 

At night, Liam and Theo sleep next to each other. Theo has long realized that only pressed against Liam he sleeps truly well, but he doesn’t believe he has the right to ask for it. Then again, he doesn’t have the right to take it from Liam either. In the end, they lie down with a few inches between them, not even the tips of their fingers touching, backs turned to each other most of the time. Some nights it takes minutes and some nights it takes hours, but every single night, it’s only a matter of time until they end up with their arms slung around each other and their faces buried against the other’s neck or chest. Warm breath against skin and heartbeat against heartbeat. 

Theo heals quickly. After a few days he gets up during the days. He lets Liam show him the town he lives in and they go out for dinner. It’s unspoken but still clear between the two of them that their situation is temporary, that they need to sit down and have a serious talk at some point, that they need to figure out what they want to do and how they want to live, but it’s not the right time. Never a good moment to bring it up when everything still seems fresh and they’re busy getting to know each other as well as a new, undiscovered part of themselves. 

Theo thinks about the apartment that’s been empty without him living in it, about all the clothes and things he has in there. How easy it would be to take a weekend trip to Beacon Hills and get the most important stuff, but he isn’t ready to ask Liam to share his home. Liam might be keeping quiet about the same thing for the same reasons. 

They’re fragile. Everything they have and what they are together is fragile. With so much as one wrong word, it can be broken, Theo is afraid. And so they never tell each other how good it feels to be touching when they sit next to each other or that they missed the other while Liam was at work and Theo at the grocery store. Nobody admits that they find the other’s opinions interesting or that they’d like to know more about them. 

Everyday, they talk, and yet, most of the words between them are left unspoken, especially the important ones, but not even unspoken words are lost between soulmates. They find their way into the other’s mind, into the other’s heart regardless, at the very least while they sleep and their walls are down, their souls unprotected. 

A lot of things that happen with Liam remind Theo of things Tara used to dream of.  _ ‘They say that when you look into your soulmate’s eyes, it makes your heart skip a beat and then it starts racing. They say that when your soulmate touches you, even just your hand, it ignites a spark and makes you feel warm all over. They say that you feel drawn to them like a magnet. And when you kiss them, it changes your whole world.’ _

Theo’s world has been changed more than enough for his taste by the color of Liam’s eyes, he thinks. Of course, the better he gets to know the guy, the less sense it makes. He isn’t going to straight up ask, but Theo does wonder what happened. What Liam - the man who saved Theo’s life, Liam who’s sharing his home, Liam who makes the world quieter and softer - what this Liam could have possibly done to make his eyes turn blue. Once again, Theo isn’t so sure anymore whether the universe really does not ever make mistakes.

*

“Hey, how about we do something tonight?” Is what Liam greets Theo with one day. It’s a Liam thing, Theo has noticed, to walk in through the door already making declarations or asking questions - no time for small talk. Theo likes it. 

“What did you have in mind?” 

“I don’t know,” Liam says as he shrugs off his jacket. He whispers a hi before he sits down on the couch next to Theo, smelling like fresh air, cheeks tinted pink. “Go out. See a movie. Get dinner. Have a couple of drinks. Whatever you feel like.” 

Is Liam asking him on a date now? And why does the thought excite him? Why is he picturing the two of them walking out of a movie theater laughing? Why is he yearning for Liam’s hand to grab his own as they walk through the night? Why is he thinking about kissing Liam? Again? Theo definitely needs to stop thinking about kissing Liam all the time. He can’t go on like this. 

“Sure,” Theo replies, “why not. Let’s go out tonight.”  _ On a date. Let’s go on a date and get our nerves wrecked and pretend like we’re not already destined to be together.  _

“Awesome.” Liam beams at Theo as if he’d just made him the greatest gift in the world. Ridiculous. How damn ridiculous he is. 

After weeks of literally living together, Theo has no right to be as nervous as he is. He’s liked wearing Liam’s clothes every day, but as he’s getting ready to go out, it’s rather weird having to pick an outfit from his date’s wardrobe. He stares into the mirror while tugging at his hair although Liam has seen him almost dead. He brushes his teeth twice. Out of all the recent events in his life, going on a date with a boy he likes shouldn’t be the one to fuck him up the most, but what can Theo do about it? 

“You look nice,” Liam tells him as Theo exits the bathroom. Theo knows he’s lost already. Liam opens the car door for him and lets him pick the movie, pays for the tickets and a huge bucket of popcorn. Theo pays attention to Liam’s laughter instead of the funny parts of the movie they’re watching, to the hand on the armrest between them instead of the screen. He can only hope Liam won’t want to discuss the movie when they get out. Theo knows nothing about it. 

“Question,” Liam says when they do leave, but luckily it doesn’t seem like he’s trying to expose how distracted Theo got. “Two questions, actually. How hungry are you? And how disappointed would you be if I didn’t take you to a fancy restaurant but a much better place instead?” 

Theo has to smile. “Surprise me,” he says. It seems like Liam is fairly good at that. 

Liam grins, takes Theo’s hand and leads the way through a nightly town Theo doesn’t know very well yet but doesn’t take much notice of. It’s cool but not cold, dim but not dark, calm but not silent. Liam’s baby blue eyes shine brighter than the stars and something fluttery is going on inside Theo. 

From a food truck in the town center they each get a baked potato filled with grilled vegetables and sour cream. Liam waits and watches as Theo takes the first bite of his, raising his eyebrows at him. “Did I promise too much?” 

Theo wouldn’t dream about complaining with the night he’s having, but regardless, the food is delicious. “Not at all,” he says after he’s swallowed, and then he takes another big bite. If this is Liam’s favorite place to eat, then maybe the universe is right after all and they really are the perfect match for each other. Before he’s done chewing, he adds, “I love it.” 

“Do you want to go home?” Liam asks then, “Or can I show you one more part of my home?” 

Theo grins. He feels like he could keep on going forever. With Liam further into a world he’s only just now starting to get to know. “Show me.” 

*

“Can you shift?” 

“What? Why?” Liam wants to know, throwing Theo a curious glance. They’ve been walking for almost half an hour, Liam showing Theo the town he lives in, stopping every now and again to tell little stories.  _ This is the high school I went to. In this parking lot I lost a tooth when I was six. Oh, do you see that lamp post over there? _

Like this, Liam telling Theo about a carefree, innocent childhood and wild teenage years, Theo listening with a smile on his face and imagining a younger version of Liam, they make their way out of town and away from the shining and blinking lights and into a more peaceful silence until at some point the streets end and a forest begins. 

“I know what I want to do now,” Theo says. He wasn’t aware of how much he misses it. They’re still standing on concrete, but the scent of earth and wood and freedom is filling his nostrils. 

Liam observes him for a minute, taking in the way Theo sucks in deep breaths and lets his eyes wander over the trees in front of them to figure out which way he’d run first. 

“I haven’t done it in a long time,” Liam finally admits. His voice is quiet, sounding almost insecure. Almost ashamed. 

“Don’t you ever want to?” Theo asks. Now that he’s presented with the opportunity, it’s all that he can think about. Giving in. Letting go. Letting the wolf take over. 

“The wolf wants to, I guess,” Liam admits quietly. “The human is scared. Doesn’t trust the wolf, I think. Not really.” 

“Oh.” Theo can’t relate to this. Personally, he thinks it’s the other way around. The human mind is a mess and living through the wolf much simpler. Liam doesn’t seem to share this opinion, so he isn’t sure whether or not to share this part of himself. For a few moments, they’re both silent, just standing in staring into the dark spaces in between trees. 

“I used to do it every night,” Theo finally says, maybe because he wants Liam to know or maybe just to fill the emptiness. “I’d leave my clothes at this rock that I found once, and then I’d run until my head would be empty.” As he speaks, Theo can almost feel it, can almost hear the quick but even breaths accompanying his runs, can almost feel the soft ground beneath him. His body starts shaking a little. 

“Fine,” Liam says, “let’s do it.” 

“I wasn’t going to make you-”

“You want to, right?” Liam interrupts him. Theo doesn’t  _ want _ to like a human person wants things. His wolf is awake and restless, the feeling closer to hunger than a simple wish. Somehow he’s managed not to think about it for quite a while, but that doesn’t mean the wolf inside him has lost its natural urges. 

“You don’t have to come with me though,” Theo points out, but Liam is already shrugging off his jacket and kicking off his shoes. Theo didn’t think that this would be how they’d see each other naked for the first time. 

“I’m kind of curious to see it,” Liam admits. Theo is definitely curious to see  _ something  _ as well. 

He takes a deep breath out and starts undressing. Other than Liam, he folds his clothes and puts them on a neat pile next to his feet. As soon as the cold air hits his bare skin, the wolf pushes to the surface. To Theo, it comes as naturally as breathing does. He remembers his first attempts to shift, knows in his head that it took a couple of tries and that it hurt when it worked, but those times are long in the past. Now, the shift is smooth and quick like gliding into warm water. He feels safe and warm and exactly right as he stands with four paws on the ground. 

Looking at Liam beside him, Theo can tell the other man is struggling a bit more. Although he’s almost as fast as Theo, the shift seems painful. Theo gives Liam a minute in case he needs it, but the eyes looking back at him out of a wolf’s face seem calm. Liam gives a faint nod.  _ Go ahead,  _ it says,  _ show me your world.  _

Theo puts one paw in front of the other and breaks into an even run. With Liam beside him, it feels strange. Exactly as always, in one way. And like a whole new sensation, in a different one. There are two sets of heartbeats now, two trails in the earth. Running nowhere means finding back to himself, but it also means finding Liam. Theo keeps straining his ears for the other wolf to make sure he’s alright. The nervousness leaves Liam soon enough. 

Theo can tell the exact moment when Liam releases the last of his inhibitions and lets the wolf lead him completely. It’s when he starts pushing harder, setting a quicker pace, taking turns and opening up new directions. 

Theo only knows that he feels  _ good _ , and that it isn’t just from inside him or just from watching Liam, but a combination of both things at the same time. Liam catches his eyes and cocks his head before he takes another turn and starts running even faster. Theo’s feels a wonderful, soft little tug at his heart and follows after him, gladly accepting the invitation to chase him. 

For someone who claims not to have shifted in a while, Liam is not only fast but persevering. Playfully, Theo nudges him every time they catch up with each other. The good thing about wolves is, they think in less complicated ways than humans. Being able to scent each other with their nose pressed into thick fur is amazing. Letting their bodies collide from time to time makes the whole thing even better. Liam bites Theo carefully and Theo bites back. Like that, they forget everything else but each other for a long time until they can’t find the energy to get up anymore after they’ve once again crashed to the ground in one single bundle of limbs and puffy breaths and fur. 

With Liam’s nose pressed against Theo’s throat, they stay as they landed, slowly catching their breath. A part of Theo wishes they could stay that way forever, two wolves running with each other, no wishes to be had beyond that. Another part is being consumed by his human side again, hoping the feeling will stay when the claws and fangs are gone. 

The shift back starts, not just in Theo but in Liam as well. Theo is very well aware of the fact that the both of them will be naked in just a few moments, but as long as Liam doesn’t move away, he doesn’t either. The human in him wants Liam’s breath against his skin and his touch and his proximity just as badly as the wolf. 

Theo closes his eyes and lets go of his own wolf. His heart is beating like crazy. All of a sudden, his human hand is against Liam’s spine and there’s hair tickling his neck. He glances down to see Liam raising his head at the same time, re-emerging from his hiding spot in the crook of Theo’s neck, baby blue eyes wide open, searching. 

In that moment, everything makes sense. There’s no doubt that it has to be Liam, that the universe has been right all along. Theo yearns with all the passion that’s been collecting for twenty-five years. Never is he going to want and need anything more badly than this right here, right now. 

“Will you let me kiss you?” Theo whispers. 

*

Theo doesn’t understand. Everything seemed perfect. Not just in that moment when he was looking right into Liam’s eyes and their lips were only inches apart and their bodies pressed together and the world exactly right. Not just then, but for all the weeks before, and during their date at the movie theater and the following walk through the town. In the woods. Together on the ground. 

None of Theo’s initial shock was left when Liam gazed up at him. Not until the next shock hit him, not in the form of a bright blue color this time, but in the shape of a word, quiet and simple. 

_ No.  _

_ ‘Will you let me kiss you,’ _ Theo asked, certain that he knew the answer already. 

_ ‘No,’ _ Liam said to him, shattering his heart. 

Theo still doesn’t understand as Liam is walking away from him, back to the edge of the little forest, back to where their clothes are, back to concrete ground and lights and away from Theo. 

“Liam,” Theo calls after him. He’s so confused. So devastated. “Liam! Please!”

Liam doesn’t stop. Instead, he only walks faster with every time Theo yells his name. 

*

“I’m sorry,” Liam says quietly as he sits down next to Theo. The few inches of space between them seem like a lot more than that. “I can only imagine how disappointed you must have been when you found out your soulmate was a-” He made a vague gesture towards his eyes, even though they had they’re human, light and soft shade of blue in that moment. “- well, this. Horrified, probably. It’s not like I can blame you.” 

Theo doesn’t know how to respond. Liam is right, he was shocked and terrified. That moment feels like a memory from a different life. 

“You know, I didn’t think it would ever open,” Liam continues after a few long moment of Theo not saying anything. “God, I hoped it wouldn't. I figured I’d lost my right to a soulmate. Everyone around me got to see their mate’s eye. I didn’t, and I was okay with that. Well, not okay, but I understood. The night you opened your eye to look down at me from the sky was like a punch in the guts.” 

Theo doesn’t say anything. 

“‘What a poor soul,’ I thought. That’s why I didn’t look for you at first. Why it took me so long to get to you. And why you almost died.” 

Theo nods quietly, sadly. “And why you didn’t let me kiss you?” 

“Maybe,” Liam admits. “I just- I don’t know how to explain it. I never asked you whether you wanted me to save you, right? And then I never asked you if you wanted to stay? Here, I mean. With me. And then everything became normal. You and I. The two of us. We became normal. A habit. And still, to this day, I haven’t asked you if you want any of it.” 

“I thought I’d told you that I do,” Theo says. “Not in those exact words, obviously. But I still thought you knew.” 

Liam looks at him for a few seconds, considers him, lips pressed together in a thin line. “Do you ever wish the world wasn’t like this?” He asks. “Do you wish you could have gone out into the world and chosen someone? Because you liked them and not because the universe has destined you to belong together?”

“Does it matter?” 

Liam nods. “I think so. There isn’t much romance to it this way, is there? You’re just stuck with a dude with blue eyes and that’s it.” 

Theo shakes his head. “Do you think I would chosen you?” 

“God, no,” Liam answers. Theo didn’t want to say it out loud himself, but Liam is right. 

“I’ve thought about it a couple of times, yeah,” Theo begins explaining. “To tell you the truth, I don’t believe that it matters how we find our way to each other. If by fate or at random, what difference does it make?”

“You would never have asked to kiss me without almost dying first,” Liam says. “That’s the difference.” 

Theo sighs and rubs his hands over his face. “You have every right to be upset. I wasn’t prepared, okay? And I freaked out. It was stupid of me to think I could just not accept you. And it almost got the both of us killed. I don’t suppose apologizing makes up for that. I am sorry though. I know better now. I know so much better, Liam.” 

“You never asked how-” 

Theo grabs Liam’s hand and takes it between his own. “It’s just a color,” he tells him, raising Liam’s cold fingers to his lips and pressing a kiss against them. “It’s beautiful, like the rest of you. I love it, like the rest of you. And if you ever want to tell me how you got it, I’ll be right here listening.” He rubs Liam’s hand and kisses every knuckle. 

“I probably will,” Liam whispers. A tear falls from his eye but before Theo can lean in and catch it, Liam smiles and pulls him in a hug instead. 

Quietly, they wrap their arms around each other. Theo lets his chin rest on Liam’s shoulder and Liam rubs his face against Theo’s hair. Together, they breathe and heal and get ready for the future. 

“Hey,” Theo says finally, pulling back a little and taking Liam’s face in both hands and smiling at him. “Show me, please.” 

Liam looks down immediately, but Theo won’t have it. “Liam,” he says softly. “Hey. It’s just a color.” 

Liam takes a deep breath out, Theo strokes his cheek with his thumb. Liam’s eyes flutter closed and he raises his head. Theo leans in and kisses the tip of his nose. Liam’s lips turn into something that could belong to a laugh or a cry equally well. 

Theo gives him time. Together they sit, together they breathe until Liam is ready to open his eyes. This time, Theo looks at him. Not from the ground up into the sky. Not through the reflection on the surface of a lake. They’re right in front of each other. Theo can’t help but smile at the sight of the most perfect thing he’s ever know. 

Blue. 

Not like any of the other werewolves he knows. Not what he expected. But also not unlovable. Bright, glowing cerulean blue unlike anything else existing in nature.

“There’s nobody like you,” Theo whispers.

Liam takes another breath out. “Theo?” He asks. “Will you let me kiss you?” 

Theo has never felt happier. Instead of replying, he leans forward, stopping for a moment so they can enjoy being close enough to almost be touching. Maybe it’s him who moves first or maybe it’s Liam - maybe it’s both of them at the same time. Their lips touch, carefully at first, tenderly. They kiss again like they were made for this and nothing else. 

_ Sorry Nana,  _ Theo thinks somewhere in the back of his mind,  _ your love story can’t be the most beautiful one forever.  _

They smile and kiss and fail to stop, pulling apart only long enough to breathe and look at each other with awe and in disbelief of how lucky they got. 

*

Every werewolf has a soulmate, and this is how it happens: You’re born into the world as one half of a whole. Some people need a little longer until they’re ready to meet the soul that will complete them. Some almost lose hope before the moment is finally there. Sometimes, what’s revealed when an eye snaps open isn’t quite what you’ve hoped for. Sometimes, the hard part doesn’t start until then. 

Some people have to fight for their happiness. Some of those battles are hardly fair. Sometimes, they don’t end well. Sometimes, it’s hard to see when they do. Some souls have a long way to travel. Some mountains are not easily moved. 

Sometimes, what it takes is a little faith in the universe. Sometimes, blue is just a color and life still pretty fucking beautiful in the end. 

  
  
  
  



End file.
